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Meditation and
Mindfulness:
Meditation Journal, Questions and Answers Biography
[ A short bio - about my experience
with meditation -
some of the experiences of jhana or however you
choose to call it...
.JPG "Meditation and Mindfulness: Meditation journal, questions and answers biography") 1). Do you feel you lead a contemplative life?
(A contemplative life is one that is engaged in a regular religious
or spiritual activity, such as prayer or meditation, following some
kind of ethical standard, such as the 10 commandments or the
Buddhist precepts and some kind of religious study, such as the
canon and commentaries of one’s chosen religion or contemplative
tradition.)
I've not led a contemplative 'life', that much is sure... starting
from about age 20 I became interested in various religions and read
some about buddhism, hinduism, church of mormons, etc... I have
recently started to practice 'sitting' again. I don't follow any
religion or adhere to any tradition but my sitting is similar to
Vipassana with a focus on the breath...
2) If so, what? Please describe.
I really do just two things... focus on the breath during sitting
meditation and I am mindful during some parts of the day - meaning,
I become aware of the present moment during the day sometimes.
Sometimes mindfulness is induced by setting an hourly chime on a
wristwatch... Sometimes it's part of a routine - I am routinely
mindful of doing the dishes, or some other physical activities... or
walking... sometimes the mindfulness comes on it's own and on it's
own schedule...
3) How long have you engaged in this
activity?
I meditated rather regularly for a period of 10 months about 9 years
ago... stopping for 9 years due to a downright fear of what was
going on inside... and not having anyone to explain it, attempt to
explain it, or relate to it... I was in the USA during that time and
Buddhist monks I spoke with there seemed oblivious to what I was
describing... could have been a language issue for some of them, but
there were others that spoke english at a high-level that were also
bewildered...
4) How frequently do you engage in this
activity? Is this contemplative activity a daily practice? If not
how often do you engage in contemplative activities?
Back then I meditated almost daily... sometimes 10 minutes, and
other times 40 minutes, never more than about 2 hours at a time...
usually once per day though sometimes twice... recently I started to
sit for 10-20 minutes at a time again...
5) How long is your typical
contemplative session?
10 minutes to 40 minutes.
6) What do you do and/or not do, during
these contemplative sessions?
I sit in a lame half-lotus position - not strict. Nearly always on
the floor somewhere. My back is pretty straight. My neck is always
straight... my head is level - meaning if my eyes were open i would
be looking out horizontally... sometimes I have a cushion under my
butt. Sometimes not. Sometimes I am leaning my lower back against a
bed, couch, chair or something else... I have severe back pain from
a soccer injury years ago. Sometimes I sit without leaning against
something and experience the pain. I put my hands in my lap, one
hand cradles the other, palms up.
I close my eyes. I watch the mind's circus for a while... eventually
it calms and I'm able to focus on the breath. I watch the full cycle
of the breath without taking attention away from it. If a thought
interrupts I re-focus on the breath. If there is pain somewhere,
itchiness, a tickle, a sting, I will shift attention to that and
watch it... until it dies away... I will then re-focus on the
breath. That's it really.
During non-meditative sitting I am mindful during some periods of
time throughout the day.
7) Have you engaged in other spiritual
activities?
Having grown up Catholic and then turning born-again christian in my
early twenties I have prayed and studied the bible quite a bit.
8) If so, what, when, how often and for
how long?
For a period of about 2 years, prayed and read bible daily, during
my early 20's (I'm 40 now).
9) Have you ever taken mind-altering
drugs, specifically psychedelics, such as LSD, mushrooms, or peyote?
If so, what and when? Do you still take them? How often?
No, never had the chance - I thought at one time I'd be open to
taking LSD for the experience, but never did... and then, after the
meditative experiences started there was no desire to at all after
that point...
10) What is the nature of the
charismatic phenomena that you experience? (The kinds of experiences
we are interested in are non-normal phenomena, such as OOBs, auras,
chakras, kundalini, kriyas raptures of various kinds, bliss,
ecstasy, jhana, visions, charismatic ringing, etc.) Please explain
how they manifest in your case.
The answer to this question would take many pages of text and I'm
not sure it would be worth the effort because it's all me describing
things
that can't really be explained at all in words... I will list some
typical experiences that went on after giving a short explanation of
how things came about...
After reading a bit on zen meditation and other meditation practices
I decided to try it. I did not follow any religion of any sort. I
read SN Goenkas book about Vipassana but I was overwhelmed by the
vocabulary used to describe things... I did not believe religion was
necessary in order to meditate and I didn't want to bring any into
it. It's inevitable I guess as I needed some guidance, but I've
never committed to memory anything much about any "ism" though my
practice seems related to Buddh"ism". To this day I don't know the
meaning of various Buddhist vocabulary that seems to describe things
that i've experienced - or that 'experienced me' really. Within the
past 2 years I've met with some english speaking Buddhist monks here
in Thailand that have told me that they believe i had jhana... I
read 2 pamphlets that explained jhana - it explained 8 levels or
steps and signs for them... it appears that i've seen them (all)...
Just knowing that I was not losing my marbles (sanity) was so
relieving that I cried great sobs of tears at the news... To finally
have someone tell me that they understood or at least 'knew of'
these states of being was so incredible that I felt as if time had
stopped (again)...
In 1997 I meditated as I mentioned for about 10 months. During that
time there were many, many experiences that I wrote of in a computer
journal after the sessions... I hadn't a clue what they meant, only
that I was following SN Goenka's Vipassana meditation book
(loosely). I focused on breathing and I was mindful during the day.
I 'attached' to nothing. The experiences over that brief time were
mind-blowing to say the least... and yet, at the time they happened
they were nothing. There was no attachment to them during the
sitting meditative sessions. It was only afterward sometimes that I
sat, thoroughly amazed, perplexed, and incompetent to understand
what had just happened, why they happened, and how they happened...
At times there was a weak 'wanting' to repeat an experience... and
usually (not always) the experience did not come... it was only when
one was totally non-attached to the idea of the experience coming or
not coming - that it came again...
That was true of nearly all the experiences... this non-attachment
to getting some experience... to having it repeat... seemed to be
crucial to progression to the other experiences... if it was a
'progression' at all...
So nearly everyday I sat and watched the breath for 20-40 minutes. I
watched the mind hijack my attention to the breath repeatedly -
thousands... tens of thousands of times maybe? At times I focused on
the other stimuli that came up - pain, heat, cold, tension,
itchiness, a tickle... and I would just watch it - pay attention to
it... and it would fade. Everything faded when attention was
applied... except for some real pains - back pain and on occasion a
foot or leg would fall asleep causing the pins and needles that
necessitated a change of position for relief...
When I first sat I would focus just on relaxing a bit - getting
comfortable sitting on the hard floor... getting a good position...
I'd relax all the muscles not needed to sit straight and then i'd
watch the mind... I'd see how many thoughts were being generated and
thrown around... sometimes it would calm down a lot after 5
minutes... sometimes it took 20 minutes... sometimes I felt so much
tension or some other emotion that I got up and went about doing
something else and meditated later that day or the next day.
Meditation was not looked at (is not) as a chore or as a way to
"get" somewhere special. It was more like a reward... a nice way to
spend a half-hour after a day at work or school or both. While it
was enjoyable at times, it was also a chore at times... and yet I
didn't look at it as either one - just something to do... I wasn't
attached to it or attached to the idea that I needed to do it
everyday or for a certain time everyday or so many times per week...
there were no restrictions or expectations put on it... in that way
I remained non-attached to it...
I began to experience various things - some of which I found
mirrored approximately other persons' experiences here in gwv but
mostly they did not...
In a few weeks of sitting - I noticed that attention was developed
enough that I could focus with great concentration on the breath.
Many breaths - as many as I chose... after fully focusing on 6 or so
breaths there developed a substantial 'power' feeling around the
concentration... a very strong sensation that this concentration on
the breath was the ONLY thing in the entire mind. There was no
thought any longer that didn't relate only to focusing on the
breath... there was a direct and full experience of the breath. That
is all. There was a profound peace because there was nothing else
going on.
My personality began to change... my ego began to dissolve... all
wants, needs, desires, wanting to "be" or "get" things of any nature
started to die away... some buddhists and others use the term
"disenchantment"... and yes, it fits... there began to be a
disenchantment with things in life... job, car, new things, old
things, doing things, fitness, anything and everything... in fact
NOTHING stood in the face of this disenchantment with everything...
one by one things, ideas, wants, needs, plans, etc... were dropped
as meaningless...
There began a feeling of "knowing" motivations of people that I knew
and also that were virtually strangers to me... but I thought I
sensed their motivations whether 'good' or not... whether harmful or
not... and the intuition seemed to be spot on...
At times early on there would arise some great overwhelming and
staggering feeling of joy or bliss! It was as if it were erupting
inside of me and then wanting to blow out of every pore... the face
was smiling so exaggeratedly that it was as if it would tear from
the strain - and yet there was not pain - just total joy or love...
impossible to describe...
At times during times of this intense concentration I would stop
focusing on the breath and focus on nothing at all. I found an empty
mind. The mind was devoid of all thought. There was nothing. The
mind had stopped. The chaos of thought was completely gone.
It was here that things started getting quite strange...
** Sometimes the body would start to 'go away'... there would be
numbness that started in the extremities usually - hands first or
feet first usually... and it would travel around to the other parts
of the body... soon the entire body would be numb or absent. There
would be no feeling of a physical body at all.
** Sometimes the mind or the feeling of mind or "self" would be
absent... it was as if watching the body as a separate thing...
** Sometimes there was a feeling of fatness of the body... the
limits of the skin would be growing outward - all parts of the body
would be getting 'fat' - extremely fat and large and filling up huge
amounts of space... and the mind would grow outward too - it was as
if there was this growing expansion of body and mind and all that
one was made up of - to grotesque proportions...
This growing outward feeling culminated in a sort of duel between
opposing forces... when the expansion had happened it eventually ran
up against another force -almost like the field of two magnets that
are made of the same fields - like two "North" poles of magnets...
they are the same and yet repel each other... and this outside force
was holding the expansion in check before it exploded and merged
with the field outside of it... at times this state just existed
there for a while - minutes or more while this tension was felt
between the two fields that were opposing in manner and yet were of
the same substance... if that makes any sense...
Occasionally the two fields would merge and suddenly there was a
feeling of complete oneness and huge expanses of oneness... and
peace... like being in resonance with all that IS... to be aware
that everything is the same... and is vast... and perfect... really
don't know how to explain this one... there was a feeling or a
knowing... a knowledge of the entire cosmos but more, of EVERYthing
and that it is all linked together - it is of the same thing... the
same process... substance... stuff.... and knowing that one was not
different from that stuff... that one was part of it too - not a
separate character with separate ego that meant something one was
IT...
** If the breath was focused on even after great concentration came
then there appeared to be a sharpening of the focus... or a refining
of the focus... it became SHARP... and so razor-focused that it felt
as if the entire head was becoming focused into a point which was
coming out of the forehead... or, more correctly like the entire
head and then BODY too was becoming focused like a cone... with the
point radiating from the head outward but there was such immense
concentration and POWER in this state that it was phenomenal... like
the entire focus of every portion of the body... every bit of energy
from the cells of the body was also engaged in this rapt attention
and focus... again, impossible to relate in words... but i'm trying!
** When the thought stopped the breathing had also slowed down quite
a bit. I'm not sure there was breath at ALL during some points...
the breath became so shallow on occasion that it wasn't known
whether it was actually making any movement in and out of the body.
It was as if the body was using so little energy to maintain the
state that it didn't need to breath in an out... it was as if the
normal movement of air in the room was enough to come into the
nostrils and replenish what had been used in the lungs and some of
the used air would be expelled... literally there was NO sensation
of breathing sometimes... the first time it happened it caused some
fear to arise because who had ever heard of breathing STOPPING
unless one was dead or dying? I remember forcing some breath in and
out just to see if I could... and of course I could... and then I
went back to watching the no-breath, no thought...
The 'no-breath' feeling wasn't really the norm and usually there was
some amount of breathing process that was going on and could be paid
attention to...
** Once while meditating I opened the eyes and looked at the rug in
front of me for a bit... a picture started to form... it was a
picture and a feeling in the mind all at once... it was as if i was
seeing the form of a boy and girl... both sexes but not one or the
other... and it was a very real feeling - as if I was sensing the
presence of this being... and there was a knowlege that it was
related to me... to my mom and father and family... and it was
strange... very strange... but I didn't attach to it and closed my
eyes and focused on breathing...
The next night i heard my wife cry from the shower "Honey,
COME HERE, come here!"
I came in to see on the floor of the shower a tiny embryo... a very
small baby that wasn't formed at all yet - was just a fingernail tip
size of tissue covered in blood and other supportive tissues... my
wife had just miscarried in the shower... and it was as if I was in
a dream as i remembered the vision and feeling of the night
before... and I showed my wife the journal entry about it and we
both were quite shocked...
There were many, many other things that happened during these
'sitting' periods... but the most bizarre things to happen were
after I STOPPED meditation for fear that I was going insane as a
result of these traumatic experiences...
After searching out people to talk to about what was going on - and
finding NOBODY that could explain anything to me about what was
going on I decided quite emphatically to STOP meditating at all from
that point on... the experiences were so surreal and powerful that
they left me at a complete loss for knowing whether I was sane
anymore...
I decided to pile on the ego-building activities of my life
before... acquiring things, money, wants, desires, even though I
didn't WANT them anymore - the fear made me RUN TOWARD them to
re-normalize my life... I began to sell real estate, bought a
different car... running all the while from these experiences which
were SO LIFE CHANGING and peaceful and awesome... but which I did
not trust fully... having nobody validate them for me...
It was then, when the search for enlightenment or for whatever was
causing these bizarre processes to occur during meditation CAME TO
ME EVEN WITHOUT MEDITATING.
I would be walking to the car to go to work and suddenly it would
come to me - this process or whatever it is... it would touch me and
the world would seem as if it was me and I was the world... the
feeling of oneness and total mindfulness of the present moment was
there - and there was nothing I did to get it... it just came... and
it was fascinating... it was as if heaven decided to touch me with a
corner of itself.
These experiences have not stopped in 9 years... though, upon first
stopping meditating they came on VERY often and powerfully as if
they were intent on changing my mind about stopping the
meditation.... it really was if the process wanted to have it's way
with me anyway... it was as if by stopping I really didn't WANT
anything... not even enlightenment... and so when I stopped wanting
it at all - it
CAME.
And it still comes now... and it's like a gravity pulling me to
begin sitting again... to begin being mindful again... and recently
I decided that I would not interfere with the process anymore...
I'll start sitting sometimes... start becoming mindful sometimes...
:)
11) When did these phenomena first
occur? How frequently do they occur? Do they still occur?
First changes after a few weeks of meditating in 1997. They occurred
off and on from that point on and have occurred for the 9 years of
not meditating... they just seem to come and go at will - not my
will - but when they will... sometimes twice per day... sometimes
not for a week. When I initially stopped meditating they were coming
daily a few times to many times per day.
12) What do you believe is the cause
and/or origin of these phenomena?
I haven't the slightest idea.... Things happen when the mind
stops. That's all I know. Today at any time it takes just a
second to stop all thought, all reaction to anything going on. It's
"on-call" so to speak. I'm not sure what it's good for, but I
have that available to play with. It makes for good conversation.
"I'll bet you can't stop your mind for 10 seconds". Nobody
I've ever asked can do it I could be asking the wrong people!
13) What do you believe stimulates and
suppresses the occurrences, frequency and intensity of these
phenomena?
I think they are not controlled in ANY way by me... but, if I sit
and meditate or if I become mindful during the day there is more of
a chance that they will 'visit'...
14) Do you dream? If so, how often? How
much sleep do you receive each day?
I have dreamt VERY little over these 9 years since meditating...
approximately once every couple of months... I sleep 5-7 hours per
night on average.
15) Have you ever had a dream in which
you knew you were dreaming, which is the definition of a lucid
dream?
Yes, quite vivid and entertaining - but before I started meditating,
not after.
16) Have you ever had a hyper-real
dream or OOB? If so when and how often?
I don't know what these are...
17) Do you believe it might be possible
to improve or intensify these subjective experiences? If so, how?
Not sure what this question refers to - the meditating or the dream
states...
18) Your gender, age and/or date of
birth, where are you from, and what religion and
ethnic/socioeconomic group would you say represents your family of
origin?
male, 40 years, from USA
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